Life Is What You Make Of It (a faith tangent) (with cite!)

[fessie]

Here’s some evidence that our beliefs about what happens to us can be far more important than the facts about what transpired.

From the NY Times

@NY Times Article

Yet in the past decade or so a handful of psychologists have argued that the quicksilver elements of personal narrative belong in any three-dimensional picture of personality. And a burst of new findings are now helping them make the case. Generous, civic-minded adults from diverse backgrounds tell life stories with very similar and telling features, studies find; so likewise do people who have overcome mental distress through psychotherapy.

Taken together, these findings suggest a kind of give and take between life stories and individual memories, between the larger screenplay and the individual scenes. The way people replay and recast memories, day by day, deepens and reshapes their larger life story. And as it evolves, that larger story in turn colors the interpretation of the scenes.

Psychologists have shown just how interpretations of memories can alter future behavior. In an experiment published in 2005, researchers had college students who described themselves as socially awkward in high school recall one of their most embarrassing moments. Half of the students reimagined the humiliation in the first person, and the other half pictured it in the third person.

Two clear differences emerged. Those who replayed the scene in the third person rated themselves as having changed significantly since high school — much more so than the first-person group did. The third-person perspective allowed people to reflect on the meaning of their social miscues, the authors suggest, and thus to perceive more psychological growth.

And their behavior changed, too. After completing the psychological questionnaires, each study participant spent time in a waiting room with another student, someone the research subject thought was taking part in the study. In fact the person was working for the research team, and secretly recorded the conversation between the pair, if any. This double agent had no idea which study participants had just relived a high school horror, and which had viewed theirs as a movie scene.

The recordings showed that members of the third-person group were much more sociable than the others. “They were more likely to initiate a conversation, after having perceived themselves as more changed,” said Lisa Libby, the lead author and a psychologist at Ohio State University. She added, “We think that feeling you have changed frees you up to behave as if you have; you think, ‘Wow, I’ve really made some progress’ and it gives you some real momentum.”

I think this also explains why books like The Secret contain just enough truth to give them credibility. I won’t argue that belief “creates” reality, as Ms. Byrne has, but surely we can agree that belief “defines” reality, no?

[Sunrazor]

This is kind of along the lines of “if you think you are successful, you will be successful.” Andrew Grove says something similar in his book, “Only the Paranoid Survive,” and there was a world-class management guru in the 1980s (whose name I cannot recall right now, ang Google isn’t helping); his management theories included catching one’s employees doing something right and reinforcing it. Among his theories was “imagining success,” and then living what one imagines. The management seminars I attended when I worked for an outsource call center were along those lines – recognize the attributes of a successful person, imagine that you have those attributes (organization, empathy, decisiveness, etc.) and you will be that manager.

[fessie]

It’s basically the same advice that’s currently en vogue for raising children, too, as per a whole bookshelf of authors. It works beautifully with my kids, anyway.

[truthpizza]

While I don’t doubt that this sort of thing has some effect, I tend to think it is seriously overrated. It is a kind of get something for nothing scheme. You don’t have to work hard or learn things or be particularly competent, just talk yourself into being a better person.

Most of us have been to “inspirational” talks that have similar themes. My sense is that we will perform a little better for a few hours or at most a few days thanks to being pumped up by the pep talk, but before too long reality sets in and the factors that have been steering our lives for that last five years will pretty much bring us back to our former habits.

I remember reading that if you really want to change your life, you have to change your environment - move to a new location, make new friends, get a new job, go to college, etc.

[cordet]

Like “dress for the job you want, not the job you’ve got”. And just as useful, i.e., only marginally. Dressing like a doctor won’t make you one. But a doctor who dresses like a businessman may make patients take a second look at his credentials.